Under the Twinkle of a Fading Star
by Jon Adcock
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 |
part 2
It was late afternoon when I woke up. I lay there on the couch for a while and took inventory of all the hurts. As expected, the right shoulder was a new one. The sun was making one of its rare appearances, and pale sunlight dribbled in through the front window. The light was so weak that the sun must have felt like I did. I had made good progress with my book but even better with the bottle. I finally got up and only felt half-dead after a shower and a few protein wafers.
The second bedroom was set up with a rickety desk and workstation. I logged into Security and went through my daily checkoffs in the hunt for Toni: hospital and morgue admissions, arrest reports, and any results from the surveillance barnacles I had surreptitiously scattered around the Fester. The barnacles were semi-flat, 4 inches across, and would adhere to any surface. They had the added advantage of being able to chameleon to whatever they were attached to. An anomaly or a facial recognition hit would trigger an alert, and one of them had transmitted the previous night.
I watched the video several times and only saw an empty street. Finally, I caught the tell-tale shimmer that indicated someone was using a scrambler field to fool surveillance. After years of vandalism of any monitoring means, the Fester was a security dead zone. Wearing a scrambler in that environment was unusual, but paranoia was probably as commonplace there as the rats. Still, it was worth a look.
The area was near Ground Zero, and most structures had suffered damage from the blast and subsequent firestorm. Blackened tree stumps lined the road, and piles of rubble 20 feet tall showed where buildings once stood. In some places, all that was left were twisted girders that reached up to heaven like a dying man’s hands raised in unanswered supplication. The area was what a whimper of pain would look like. The building that the shimmer had disappeared into was an old warehouse on the edge of the devastation. It still bore scars from where the flames had licked at it.
When I stepped inside, I was assailed by noise and a funk composed of mildew, reefer, and unwashed bodies. Converted into a nightclub, the interior was dank, dim, and packed with people. A U-shaped bar in the center looked like it had been cobbled together from lumber scavenged from the surrounding scrap heaps. Mismatched tables and chairs were scattered throughout.
A hole was cut into the floor near the far wall, and a large group was crowded around the railings that circled it. Over the shouts of the crowd, I could hear growls and yelps of pain. I pushed my way to the front. A fighting ring was set up in the brightly lit basement, and two recombinants were locked in a struggle.
Recoms were our bioengineered slaves, chimeras the splicers created with animal and human DNA. Both were Canis and tore into each other while the crowd around me cheered and placed bets. Not for the first time, I wondered who the real animals were.
I moved over to the bar and ordered a beer. If Shimmer were here, I trusted that my finely honed detective skills would pick him out. I leaned back and observed the crowd, looking for anything unusual or suspicious. The guy at the end of the bar was bare-chested, and his entire upper body and head were covered in a spiderweb tattoo. He also had a large, realistic spider tattoo on his chest. I raised my beer and then froze as the spider started to move. It crawled to his shoulder and then down his arm to the bar. Its head was rat-like. I muttered, “Damn splicers,” and moved down several stools. The new plan was to finish my beer, show Toni’s holo around, and then go home.
“Someone wants to see you,” a voice rumbled as a large hand slapped down on my shoulder.
I glanced up. The voice and hand belonged to one of the largest humans I’d ever seen. He was at least seven feet tall, and his muscles seemed to have their own muscles. He also had enlarged facial bones and a misshapen body, the usual signs of backroom gene mods and wet augmentation. Goliath stared down for a moment, turned around, and lumbered off. I swiveled around on my barstool and waited. Finally, after about 20 feet, he realized I wasn’t following behind like a puppy dog and lumbered back. “I said someone wants to see you,” he rumbled again.
“Yeah, heard you the first time, but it still sounds more like a statement than an invitation.”
“You need to follow me.” His face creased up in frustration.
“Lead on.”
I grabbed my beer and followed. The bar was crowded, but people moved out of his way. He was like a great white shark swimming through schools of minnows, and I trailed behind in his wake. Our goal was a table with three hard cases sitting at it. It was evident that the one in the middle was the man in charge, and the other two were hired muscle. He was short, fair-haired, and had a build that had been muscular at one time but was on a downhill slide toward fat. The other two were big and beefy. In front of him was something as rare as a unicorn: a bottle of Jack Daniels. There was one glass next to the bottle.
“Here he is, Len,” my escort said, petulantly adding, “He thinks he’s funny.”
“Antagonizing Donny isn’t very smart.” Len gave me a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. There was a jitteriness about him that had to be chemically induced.
“Doing stupid things is one of my personality traits. I like to think it’s endearing.” My smile didn’t reach my eyes either. “So, how ’bout cutting to the chase? What do you want?”
“Man, hostile and impatient. No wonder you old-timers screwed everything up so bad. I’m trying to do you a favor, man, so sit down, have a drink, and stop being such a dick. Hey!” This last was said to the busser walking past us. “Get my friend a glass.”
I sat down across from him. Donny was a looming presence directly behind me. After the busser returned, Len opened the bottle and poured two fingers worth into each glass. He raised his glass in a toast, waited until I did the same, and slammed it back. I took a cautious sip.
“So, whaddya think?” he asked.
“Not sure whose bathtub it was made in, but that’s not Jack.” So, I sat and had my drink. “What do you want?”
“You crack me up, man. OK, let’s get down to business. Hear you’re looking for someone. I can help.”
“Yeah, I’m looking for a girl. Seen her?” I asked with my palm up and Toni’s holo slowly rotating. My arm started to tremble, and I steadied it. The trembling had begun over a year ago and was getting worse. There was a crash nearby. The busser had dropped a tray of glasses and was clumsily trying to clean it up.
“Look at that dress and those curls. That’s no Townie. So, a little lamb is lost among us wolves. No wonder Security was up everybody’s asses a couple of weeks ago. So, what? They came up with jack, and you’re Plan B? Bet Daddy Grub is paying a lot to get her back.”
“If you’ve got some info, I’d like to hear it. If not, we’re done here.”
“We’re done when I say we’re done. Have to tell ya, man, this tough-guy act is starting to wear on me. Don’t get me wrong, bet you were a badass, but that was, what, like 30 years ago. You’re old now and should take it easy. Go home and put your feet up. Enjoy your twilight years. Before you leave, though, upload everything about the girl and her daddy. We’ll take it from here. Daddy will get his little darling back. Provided, of course, he pays the asking price.” He used his forefinger to slide a data transfer module across to me as he said this.
“So, here’s what’s going to happen.” I picked up the module, snapped it in half between my thumb and fingers, and dropped the pieces on the table. “I’m getting up and walking out of here. And you’re going back to whatever you do. Deal some Bliss. Sell bootlegs of Jack Daniels. Whatever. Just stay away from her and me. Do that, and you might live long enough to be as old as I am.”
“Why’d you go and do that?” He scooped up the broken pieces. “I wanted to keep things nice and friendly-like, but I guess some people can’t be reasoned with. So now, it’s gotta get... messy.”
I slammed the table forward, knocking all three over backward in their chairs. I flipped the table on top of them, grabbed the chair I had been sitting on, and swung it against Donny’s head. The chair shattered, and Donny was knocked back a few feet. He gave me a smile that let me know I was in for a world of hurt and came at me. I ducked under his punch and gave him two quick jabs to the kidneys. It was like punching a wall.
A backhand caught me across the cheek and sent me reeling over the top of one of the nearby tables. Both hired muscles were on their feet and coming at me then. When one of them got close enough, I grabbed a chair and brought it down on his head. He dropped and wasn’t getting up. I threw a table at Donny to slow him down. A kick to the groin sent the second heavy to his knees. I pulled his head up by the hair and punched him rapidly. He crumpled to the ground.
Donny stalked me as I tried to keep the tables between him and me. Now I knew how a mouse felt. There had been screams and a scrambling exit from this part of the bar when the fight started. Four bouncers stood nearby but were in no hurry to step between Donny and me.
“Take a look at your shoulder, Donny. Fight’s over. Another step, and they’ll be cleaning you up with shovels and buckets.” I held up a detonator. There was a limpet grenade attached to his shoulder. I had slapped it on before he knocked me across the room. He stopped and started to reach for it. “It’ll release in about thirty minutes. Try pulling it off before then and you’ll paint the walls with your insides.”
“Whoa. There’s nothing personal in any of this.” Len held his hands out placatingly as I walked towards him. “I just saw an opportunity.”
“A little lesson.” I grabbed his shirt and lifted him. “Even old dogs can still bite. Listen carefully, Len, so there’s no confusion. I’ll kill you if I even hear your name and hers mentioned together.”
* * *
When I got home, I skipped the book and went straight to the bottle. It was late afternoon when I finally woke up. After washing down a handful of stimulants with tepid tap water, I went through the daily checklist: hospitals, morgues, etc. No results. I sat and thought.
One thing bothered me: why did she go into the Fester? Anti-Grub sentiments ran high there, and Toni was smart enough to know that. Security thought she wandered there by accident and that whatever happened was a crime of opportunity. What if that was bullshit, and she went there to meet someone? Hundreds of Townies worked in Grubville, and one could have struck up a friendship with her. I pulled up the personnel database and narrowed the search to workers who had the day of her disappearance off or called in sick that day. There were more than I thought there’d be.
I went downstairs to get the bottle and finished it while scrolling through the files. Townies were heavily vetted before they were allowed to work around the elites, but I cross-referenced each name with Security just in case. Two hours later, I was still looking.
Finally, something nagged at me, and I scrolled back up and stared at the ID photo of Jeremy Sloan, a 17-year old worker. Sloan was a good-looking kid with dark brown eyes, light brown skin, and a 1,000-watt smile. Something was familiar about him. It finally dawned on me that he was the busser from last night. He also worked in one of the residential dining halls up the hill.
* * *
Four nights later, I sat on a bench across from the public transportation terminal, waiting for Sloan to arrive after his shift in Grubville. The surveillance of him over those last few days had been fruitless. All the kid did was work and sleep. Searching his apartment turned up a scrambler hidden under his bed, but nothing to tie him to Toni. I didn’t want to hand him over to Security if I wasn’t 100% sure. People who went into their basement interrogation rooms usually didn’t leave them.
Down the block, two indentured workers were painting over anti-Grub graffiti sprayed on the front of a building. That kind of anger and resentment had been rare once, but times had changed. Lately, a generalized discontent had spread as more have-nots questioned why they were supposed to be content with scraps the haves let drop from their table of plenty. Strikes and acts of industrial sabotage were common. The city was calm like a bomb.
The transport came into view. It carried over fifty workers and was pulled by bioengineered draught animals. After they entered the terminal, the draughts yowled and steamed in the cool evening air as the workers disembarked. Restless and irritable, the draughts seemed to know this was their last run of the night. After this, they would be taken to the kennels in the following block to be fed and put to bed. The draughts were large and hairy, with thick black tongues that lolled out of their mouths as they fidgeted and panted. They gave off a smell like newly mowed grass.
Sloan was one of the last workers off. He joined the queue at the fenced, secured property area. A simian-like recom was on duty there and carefully checked the workers’ tickets as they retrieved their bikes and scooters. Sloan finally got his scooter and rode off.
A tracker was hidden on his scooter, so I waited a bit before following him. A street map was fed to my implant, with Sloan’s route traced in red. The city’s streets were their usual chaotic mess. Scooters sped and weaved among the public vehicles and the beasties that pulled them. Pedestrians impatiently waited on the street corners for a break in the traffic. The more daring ones would offer up a prayer and dart across. Creative profanity was the soundtrack to a near-accident ahead of me.
As I rode, my motorcycle got more than a few envious looks. Pre-Burn tech was in diminishing supply, and the bike still looked good for all its rust spots and scratches. I wished I could say the same for myself.
The looks eventually became less envious and more menacing. When I was in the heart of the Fester, a mile from the previous night’s bar, the red tracing that was Sloan’s route stopped moving. I cruised slowly through a residential area filled with abandoned or partially demolished townhouses. A fire had raged through here, and a long stretch held little more than blackened husks.
The tracker’s signal came from a townhouse near the end of a long row of mostly intact homes. I rode past, parked in an alley a few blocks away, and ghosted. The stealth tech I wore was Pre-Burn, and I faded from view like a Cheshire Cat. During the day, anyone looking close enough might see a slight distortion, but I was completely invisible at night.
One of the houses on the block was a Bliss house, and eight addicts were sprawled on the front steps, surrounded by empty vials. A baseline dog was crouched near the feet of one of them. As I got closer, the dog’s hackles went up, and he started to growl.
“Rico, shhh.” His owner reached out and touched the dog’s head affectionately. He settled down but still gave a slight growl as I passed. The dog was in better shape than his owner and would probably outlive him. Bliss years were hard years, and the owner was just another junkie with tombstones in his eyes.
The tracker’s signal came from what seemed like a nondescript house, but its differences stood out as I got closer. All the windows were barred, and the door was heavy and solid. The place looked like a prison. I used a pen-sized laser to burn out the lock and open the front door. Sloan’s scooter was just inside, leaning against a wall. There were voices from upstairs.
The house was dark, and I switched to night vision as I ascended the stairs. The voices came from a room at the end of the second-floor hallway. They were muffled; I couldn’t hear what was said, but could tell a man and a woman were in the room. I waited outside the door for a moment and then kicked it open.
Sloan was in a chair but jumped to his feet when the door flew open. Sitting on the edge of the bed was someone dressed in men’s coveralls with close-cropped hair dyed black. A determined effort had been made to disguise her, but I could see it was Toni.
Copyright © 2024 by Jon Adcock
